RSW's Diary Comments

None.

A picture of the back (verso) of the illumination which serves as a label.

Poet Christina Rossetti sketch by
her brother Dante Gabriel Rossetti

RSW made the illumination based on the first few lines of the following poem...

A Birthday

by Christina Rossetti

My heart is like a singing bird
      Whose nest is in a watered shoot;
My heart is like an apple tree
      Whose boughs are bent with thick set fruit.
My heart is like a rainbow shell
      That paddles in a halcyon sea;
My heart is gladder than all these
      Because my love is come to me.
Raise me the dais of silk and down;
      Hang it with vair and purple dyes;
Carve it in doves and pomergranates,
      And peacocks with a hundred eyes;
Work it in gold and silver grapes,
      In leaves and silver fleur-de-lys;
Because the birthday of my life
      Is come, my love is come to me.

We see a theme in Woodward's Illuminations being that of deeply devotional sentiments; whether it be to a faith in God, the love of a friend, or a heart-felt repose. Rossetti is known for her devotional poetry...

From the Dissertation, "Letter and Spirit: The Devotional Poetry and Prose of Christina Rossetti"
by Dinah Roe University College London, PhD, 2003   [ To view the 305 page paper ]

"Tom Paulin recently commented on Christina Rossetti's devotional poems: 'Although it is helpful to know the biblical sources of these lines, I do not think that they, and indeed most of Rossetti's poetry, are helped by that knowledge. Despite advances made by feminist critics in the rediscovery and rehabilitation of Rossetti, there remains a critical reluctance to address the role of religion, and specifically of her reading of the bible, in the career of this famously devout poet."

Thomas Neilson Paulin is a Northern Irish poet essayist, editor and lecturer, a regular panelist on the BBC's Newsnight Review, and critic of film, music and literature. He lives in England, where he was the G. M. Young Lecturer in English Literature at Hertford College, Oxford.

  For more information about poet Christina Rossetti please VISIT HER WIKIPEDIA PAGE